


Nor a Thorn Nor Threat

by RingThroughSpace



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Afterlife, F/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, The Problem of Susan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:55:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24325387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RingThroughSpace/pseuds/RingThroughSpace
Summary: Ginny had always assumed she'd find her daughter in the afterlife.What she hadn't imagined was a train station.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 3
Kudos: 53





	Nor a Thorn Nor Threat

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [End Of the Line](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/623878) by shewhoguards. 



> Content warning for references to child abduction.

Ginny had always assumed she'd find her daughter in the afterlife.

It was self-indulgent, she knew, but, in the decades after Lily had disappeared, after she'd come to _accept_ that Lily had disappeared, she sometimes let herself imagine their eventual reunion. The details had varied. Her mother had always spoken of fields, tall summer grass with sweet-smelling flowers, and it was easy for Ginny to imagine her daughter - still small and laughing, the way she was when she'd last seen her - running towards her and leaping into her arms.

What she hadn't imagined was a train station.

She found herself in the middle of a crowd of people, pushing towards the platform. No one had luggage, fortunately, but there were enough people that she felt herself pushed along by the crowd until she stepped into an alcove and looked around. 

The mood was joyous. Usually, reunions occurred as people stepped off a train, but here the crowd that lingered around the platform were waiting for others to step through the door. And most of them seemed to find them.

Around her, people were embracing.

A smiling teenage boy with a sketch pad reached out and took a plump-cheeked baby from a girl not much older than him. _Not Lily._ A young woman with a dirty face and a torn dress embraced a young man in a leather tunic, while a woman in formal clothes and a circet -- her mother, perhaps? -- calmly took the hand of a older man. Three people - an old man, an old woman, and a pale figure - strode hand-in-hand, a dog trotting along behind them.

None of them were Lily.

A few people seemed to be as confused as her. An older woman, gray hair coiled into a bun, stepped through the crowd, her Muggle suit clearly out of place. She looked bewildered. _Perhaps we can be confused together?_ Ginny thought. She stepped forward, but then -

"Ginny!"

Harry was slightly stooped, his thinned hair gray, but as he stood, he became younger.

She ran to him and wrapped her arms around him, inhaled his scent. "You're here," she said. _You're dead,_ she realized. "You're here," she whispered again, sadder this time. Then she drew in a breath, smiled and pulled him in for a kiss.

"Ahem," said a voice near her shoulder.

Ginny pulled back instinctually. It was James. He looked barely older than the last time she had seen him. Albus was standing by his side. She tried not to think about that too hard.

"Is Lily here?"

Her husband -- youthful again -- shook his head sadly. "They never did find her body. Ron was right. They must have killed her when she disappeared."

Ginny shook her head sadly. "She isn't dead."

Harry looked at her with sad eyes. "She's gone, Ginny."

"No, she isn't," Ginny insisted. They'd had this argument a dozen times. "She isn't." A sudden certainty struck her. "If Lily were dead, she'd have been here by now. She can't be dead."

"Mum," said James. "Maybe she went on ahead. Maybe she met Nana."

The train whistle blew.

"We need to get on now!" Albus said. "It's going to leave without us."

"I-"

"Lily will be there waiting for us," Harry said confidently. He'd been dead once before. But Ginny hadn't.

 _I should wait for my daughter,_ Ginny thought. But also: _I should go with my family._

Harry held out his hand, and Ginny took it. As she glanced around one last time, though, she saw what almost seemed to be a flash of red - _Lily?_

She let herself be led into the train. Or perhaps she didn't.

For a moment she was looking through two eyes, one set inside the train, the familiar compartments filled with faces she hadn't seen in years, and the other standing beside the train, watching as it passed.

And with a horrible wretching, Ginny found herself on the platform alone, enveloped in a cloud of smoke, watching the train pull out before her.

"I'm here," she said to no one in particular.

Then she turned around confidently. If she wanted to find a missing child, she would need to go to the stationmaster.

***

There was a queue of people lined up waiting for the stationmaster, but time had little meaning in a place like this.

The older woman was at the counter when Ginny got into line. "I -" The woman - slightly younger now, her hair streaked with black - looked at the skeleton with wide eyes. "I think there's been some mistake. I'm at the wrong station. I'm not supposed to be here."

"ONLY PASSENGERS ARE ALLOWED ON THE PLATFORM. ALL ON THE PLATFORM ARE PASSENGERS." He turned away. "THE NEXT TRAIN WILL BE ARRIVING MOMENTARILY."

"I don't think-"

"ALL TRAINS ARE THE SAME," he intoned. "IF THIS IS NOT YOUR TRAIN, YOU SHOULD WAIT FOR THE NEXT ONE."

The woman's eyes were wide as she stepped away from the platform.

When Ginny finally approached the counter, the line behind her was no shorter. "YOUR QUESTION?" the skeleton intoned.

"Have you seen a little girl?" Lily. She wouldn't be a little girl anymore, of course, but that was the only way Ginny knew her. If she had grown -- she _would_ have grown --

The thought of not recognizing her daughter terrified her beyond belief.

Fortunately, the man didn't seem to notice. "I HAVE SEEN MANY LITTLE GIRLS."

"She would be about this big, with red hair and --"

"WOULD SHE BE WAITING TO MEET YOU?"

Ginny swallowed. "Yes. No. I mean, I need to meet her, but I don't know if she would know me."

"IF SHE IS HOPING TO MEET YOU, THERE IS A MEETING PLACE." The skeleton gestured at a crowded area clustered around a central pedestal. No children, though. _Not Lily._ "THERE IS ALSO A REFRESHMENTS COUNTER. WE ARE OUT OF BISCUITS BUT THERE IS STILL TEA."

"But Lily isn't there. Do you know anywhere where a little girl could be hiding?"

"THERE IS A LOST PERSONS STATION," the skeleton intoned. "THIS PLATFORM IS SMALL. IF YOU CANNOT FIND SOMEONE, YOU MAY BE THE ONE WHO IS LOST."

"But-"

"LOST PEOPLE CAN BE FOUND AT THE LOST PERSONS STATION. SO PEOPLE LOOKING FOR LOST PEOPLE CAN MEET AT THE LOST PERSONS STATION. OR THEY CAN TAKE REFRESHMENTS AT THE REFRESHMENT COUNTER. I AM TOLD THAT TEA IS RELAXING. NEXT QUESTION."

Ginny stepped aside, searching the crowd, while a young girl stepped up behind her. Her skin was dark.

She wasn't Lilly.

***

For lack of anything to do, Ginny took tea.

The refreshments counter was in a dusty corner of the station. A hot water dispenser sat on a small shelf, next to an empty plate that probably once held biscuits and a stack of ancient, chipped mugs. There was no sign of tea.

Hot water would be good, at least.

Ginny took a mug and turned the knob for the dispenser. What dripped out was brown. It took her a moment to realize it was tea.

 _Tea on tap._ Of course they would have tea on tap.

She took a sit of it experimentally, then made a face. It was terrible, somehow both weak and overly bitter. But it was warm.

Ginny took the mug and walked to find the lost person's station.

***

There were no little girls at the lost person's station either.

The area was small, two sets of benches facing one another in a corner conveniently located near the entrance. The woman ahead of Ginny had already claimed a spot on one of the benches, so Ginny slid into the other one, beside an old man wearing a faded Hogwarts robe.

"Another lost one," he said congenially. Then he pointed at her mug. "Terrible, isn't it?" 

Ginny nodded, still a little too shaky to speak.

The man smiled and reached into his robe, pulling out a pocket flask. "Here," he said. "I'll spice it up for you." He poured a generous amount of liquid into her tea, then handed it back to her.

Ginny took a sip and smiled. "Thank you." It was still only a poor approximation of a hot toddy, but the warmth and the liquor both helped to sooth her. "I'm Ginny," she said. "What's your name?"

"Gregor," said the man. He paused and added, without preamble, "Do you know the name of the head of Hogwarts? Alfred over there has been here longer than me, and Professor Sue here" - he pointed at the black-haired woman - "has never even heard of Hogwarts."

Ginny blinked in surprise, then thought for a moment. "Headmistress Harmring, last I heard. From Ravenclaw. I met her once, I think. Cold, but a good administrator. The school's in good hands."

The old man smiled. "At least she isn't gone yet, then." He sat in silence for a minute.

"I had to hunt through my pockets to find my ring," he said suddenly. "I was Polymorphed when I went. I'm lucky I got my robes back. Miriam will be disappointed. She always thought Transformation was a bad idea, and I suppose I proved it to her."

Ginny suddenly realized why he'd asked her. "Is she who you're waiting for?"

"Yes." He smiled. "I'd thought she'd been here sooner, though. She wasn't that much younger than me."

"I'm sure she'll be along shortly," Ginny said distractedly. _Unlike Lily,_ she realized. Lily was more than twenty years younger than her, and Ginny hadn't died of old age. She could be here for awhile. Decades, perhaps. A century, even. If Lily became a ghost -- and how _did_ you become a ghost? -- maybe much longer than that.

"Perhaps," the man said. "I've never see a Headmaster here yet, though, have you? The Founders excluded, of course. Maybe they don't go here. Maybe they stay at the other place. Maybe she'll be on the wall forever."

Ginny swallowed the lump in her throat. "You could go ahead of her. She'll follow you once she gets here." _She's your wife, not your daughter. A woman, not a scared little girl._

"I could," he conceded. "But then I wouldn't be here. If I left, maybe she'd have no one to go with. I wouldn't do that to her. Even if it means a few more years of bad tea."

 _Hufflepuff,_ Ginny realized. It should have been obvious already.

They sat in silence for a minute, and then he asked, "Who are you here for?"

Ginny smiled. "My daughter. Lily." The liquor may have helped, but Ginny suddenly felt relaxed. Talking about Lily felt _right,_ somehow.

"Do you know when she'll be along?"

"No." There was a hollowness in Ginny's stomach as she spoke the words out loud. "Maybe she's gone already. She disappeared when she was ten."

"Kidnapped, you think?"

"Maybe. Yes." The familiar fear returned "My husband thinks she's dead. He went on already. I- I didn't get on the train." That moment felt strange, stranger than anything before. She frowned. "I almost did, but then I didn't."

"You split, you mean."

"Split?"

"When there's more than one person you need to meet, you split. I've seen it happen before. I don't understand it well. _He_ -" he pointed at the skeleton "- probably does, but he's not one for explanations. But if you're here, you're _meant_ to be here."

The woman across from them shifted uncomfortably, but Gregor seemed not to notice. "Tell me about Lily."

"She was my daughter," Ginny told him. How did you describe a child to someone? "She loved animals. She was already smart, though. So smart, so talented. She was so excited about attending Hogwarts. And then one day -- I went into her room and she was gone. We looked for years, but we never found her."

Ginny should have been embarrassed to unburden herself before a stranger, but somehow she wasn't. Lily was what mattered, after all. She was here for Lily. It was right for her to talk about her.

She shook her head. "It's silly for me to think that she's not dead. She probably is. Maybe I shouldn't have stayed. Maybe I should have gone. Maybe-"

Gregor shook his head. "I've been waiting for some time," he said. "If there's anything I've learned from waiting here, it's that eventually everyone finds themselves where they should be." A train whistle blew, and he turned around. "Look," he said, pointing. "There's some more who have." The doors opened, and a crowd pushed forward onto the train. "I've not yet grown tired of this."

All the trains looked the same, the sturdy black cars with their curtained windows revealing velvet-lined cushions. One box was filled with children, dressed in their Hogwarts uniforms, smiling, and Ginny caught her breath. Had another group of schoolchildren -?

But no. She could recognize one of the faces from Albus's days at Hogwarts. _The best days of their lives,_ she thought, a little sadly. 

They had found each other again, though, she realized suddenly. They were leaving together.

Gregor had turned back to Sue. They were immersed in some sort of conversation.

"You know, back when I -" The old man paused mid-sentence, his eyes on the door.

Ginny turned. A sandal-clad girl embraced a slightly older boy. Two old men stepped out, hand in hand. A girl, slightly confused - _not Lily,_ Ginny thought, though of course Lily wouldn't be a child anymore - followed by an old centaur. And then, behind them, a old woman in formal robes with miskempt hair stepped hesitantly onto the platform.

Grey hair. Weasley hair lightened with age. _Not Lily._

"Miriam!" the man exclaimed, his tale forgotten.

"Gregor?" Ginny asked, excitedly, but the man paid her no attention.

"It's not going to do any good," she thought. The realization was sharp. If there had been others around, she would have thought they were speaking to her. "Once they find what they're looking for, they only have eyes for themselves. Nothing else. Even before they find what they're looking for, they only think of themselves."

Ginny glanced around, but there was only Sue and a small dog.

Gregor and Miriam were embracing. Gregor had hair now, even if it was still mostly grey, and his ring was back.

The woman's hair was less grey but just as frizzled as before, and Ginny realized there were tears in her eyes. "You're here. Annie -"

He shook his head and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I wouldn't leave you alone."

"THE NEXT TRAIN WILL BE LEAVING MOMENTARILY," the skeleton intoned.

"They only think of themselves," Ginny thought again. "Only themselves. Never of any of the rest of us. Not the pets. Not the small doggies, either." She glanced around, but still saw nothing. "Such a nice doggie. Maybe he should get a biscuit."

It was an odd thought, but it made sense. Ginny started rummaging through her handbag, but Sue reached out and touched her elbow. "It's the dog," she said.

The dog wagged its tail and whuffed.

"No," said Sue. "If you want a biscuit, you ought to ask for one properly. That's not fair."

"Fine," the dog whined. "Give me a biscuit."

"Ask," Sue said, with the patience of a teacher.

"May I have a biscuit?"

"Nicely."

"May I please have a biscuit?"

"Much better," Sue said. For a moment, she almost smiled. "Would you like to give him a biscuit?"

Ginny took the half-eaten biscuit from her handbag and tossed it to the dog, who gobbled it up immediately.

"What do you say now?" Sue prompted.

"Thank you," the dog said. "Do you have any more biscuits?"

Ginny shook her head, and the dog walked away.

Ginny turned to Sue. She seemed a bit more relaxed now. "That was clever," she said. "I didn't think they had animagi in the Muggle world."

"They don't," Sue said. "I wasn't always in the - Muggle world." She seemed to stumble over the word. _She's only just now learned of it,_ Ginny realized suddenly. "I lived elsewhere once. They had talking animals there. Proper ones. Though most of them didn't try to take food from other people."

"You're a Muggle," Ginny said. She hadn't seen many Muggles here. "If you didn't go to Hogwarts, where did you go?"

"Oxford University. But I was a professor at Harvard."

Ginny frowned. "I've never heard of Harvard."

"It's in America. I think you'd call it a Muggle school. I was a professor of theology."

"Ah." Wizards had a complicated relationship with religion -- the priest Harry had brought into the Wizarding world to marry them had burst into tears when he saw an Exploding Snapdragon -- but Ginny had at least heard of the subject. "What did you write about?"

"The problem of evil, mostly. I thought what happens after death might justify what we've experienced in life." Sue smiled ruefully. "I was wrong, I guess." For a moment, she'd seemed to forget herself, but she was suddenly close to tears. " _This_ " - she gestured at the station - "is definitely nothing like what I'd expected."

"What had you expected?"

"Judgement, of a kind." She seemed embarrassed. "That was at least what some of us believed," she added quickly. "Love. Compassion. The Catholics - some of them, at least - thought that we would go to Purgatory, to work away our sins. Others thought we'd be forgiven immediately. But even there-" She shook her head. "I'll have to admit, I can't make sense of this place. I'd love to bring some of my colleagues here, but I doubt that will happen. I've yet to see anyone I know."

Apart from Susan, Ginny hadn't seen any Muggles on the platform. "Maybe they'll come later," she said, gently.

"I don't think so," Sue said. Her nervousness had returned, and she seemed to be close to tears. "I've looked around, but I don't see anyone."

"How about the people from your other world?"

Sue shook her head. "My sister and brothers would already be here. They passed on before I did." She looked around sadly. "They died in a train accident," she admitted softly. "I've avoided trains since then. Maybe this _is_ hell."

 _That_ , at least, was something Ginny had heard of. "This isn't hell," Ginny said firmly. "My husband was here. _Gregor_ was here. Neither of them deserved to go to hell."

Sue chuckled. "You haven't read some of the works I have." She sighed. "But even those people have softened with time." She looked around again nervously. "I shouldn't _be_ here. How can I go to an afterlife when I don't know anyone?"

A realization grew like a lump in Ginny's throat. Maybe she wasn't waiting for _Lily._ "You could come with -"

"Susan!"

The booming voice came from the empty end of the station, away from the train. Ginny spun around to see a cluster of three young adults. "Susan!" one of them said again, but it was the girl who was speaking.

A look of joy spread across Sue's face. "You came!" she exclaimed. "I wasn't sure you would." She took a step forward, then pushed her cane aside as the years fell away. She was younger, lankier, her hair dark and loose by the time she reached them. Out of the corner of her eye, Ginny thought she saw something red as well, but when she turned back, it - and they - were gone.

It hadn't been Lily.

***

Ginny wasn't sure how long she'd waited.

Around her, crowds were still swarming. People died, no matter what. People died and others were born.

 _Perhaps I should get on the train,_ she thought. Perhaps Lily had left already. Perhaps-

"Mum!"

Ginny turned to see a white-haired woman walking slowly through the station. When Ginny looked at her, the woman's eyes lit up, and Ginny _knew_. Her hair transformed from white to red -

"Lily!"

And a red-haired girl who smelled of summer flowers leaped into her arms.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the _amazing_ "End of the Line" by shewhoguards. I am not doing it justice.
> 
> This is a triple crossover fic about two portal fantasy worlds, so if you think you recognize a background character, you're probably correct.


End file.
